Why should the United States force a switch to metric?
Should we force a switch to metric? That is the question.
This journal is not so much in response to
u83r1337*N!Xh4x0r's finely written essay on the benefits of the Metric system over the Imperial systems,
but rather a response to the actual question posed in this forum topic,
specifically: "why should the United States force a switch to
metric?" (rephrased)
There is no questioning the merits of the metric system; the very reason it
was created was to deal with the problems associated with other systems
like the Imperial measurement system. Its very name "metric"
implies that it is unified standard, meant to be the end-all and be-all
standard for measurement. In many ways it is, but regardless, the question
posed was not a comparison of the two system, but rather: is there a
compelling reason for the United States to force a switch to Metric?
This is what I will address, with little emphasis on the "merits"
of the Imperial system, except maybe as an explanation as to why it is
still used, or preferred. Let me be clear: Metric is a better
system. However, just isn't good enough to warrant forcing an
abrupt switch to.
A Short History of the United States and the Metric System
How ironic that a decimal-based measurement system, the precursor to the
Metric system, was first proposed by Thomas Jefferson--an American--to be
later unified into a single system by the French, and yet the United States
is one of the last countries in the world to enforce its use. However, to
believe that the United States is not a "metric" nation is naïve
at best, and at worst, propaganda.
The US officially adopted Metric in 1866 (Kasson Metric Act of 1866),
making it one of the first ten nations to do so. In addition, it was one
of the original seventeen signatories of the Convention du Mètre, an
international treaty to oversee the use and keeping of Metric standards.
The difference between the US and other metric adopters, is that the US has
chosen to force its people to adopt the standard; the same thing
went for the Imperial measurement system: it is not a mandatory system,
and therefore its use is wholly based on its use by people and industry.
The Imperial measurement system stuck because it was pretty well
standardized and it worked pretty well despite its idiosyncracies. Also,
at the time, there were simply better things to do then get some farmers
and industrialists to adopt some new measurement system, especially in the
latter half of the 19th century. Measurements were accurate enough with
the old system, and more importantly, such measurement standards
were established. Changing-over would cost a lot, and would have been
unnecessary. The US did not need to switch over the way European
nations did (more on this later), so conversion was not mandatory.
The topic was again brought up, in major force, in 1968 when Congress
authorized three-year study of the International System of Units (SI) in
the United States. Of interest in this study was whether or not it was
feasible to switch from Imperial to Metric. It was eventually decided that
the United States would move to become a "metric nation,"
especially since the United States had abandoned its isolationalist policy.
Of note in the recommendation is that the conversion to metric would not
be abrupt; but rather the "metrication" of America would be a
gradual, "phased" process over ten years. Also of note: this
was a recommendation, not a mandate. Congress passed the
"Metric Conversion Act of 1975," for which some "Metric
Board" was established to help the transition along. However, like
coin-dollars, the board and its efforts were largely ignored, if not out of
convenience. Eventually the "Metric Board" disappeared
altogether in 1982.
Roll ahead to 1988 and yet another congressional
act, the "Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988" took aim
at industry to have it adopt the metric system for industrial standards.
Great. Now the Feds were responsible for helping industry towards
conversion to metric, and as a first step, government agencies would switch
to metric, with exception to the highway system. Other standards, like
those in the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1992, require metric to at
least appear on packaging such as food, with no penalty if Imperial units
are removed.
Adopt Metric?
So it is established that there has been at least some effort to
"metrify" America since adopting the standard over a century ago.
Why, then is America still considered an "Imperial units"
nation? Because people still use it.
The fundamental reason for the lack of widespread Metric adoption in the
United States is: we're used to Imperial units. Is this a good
reason? "No" some would say: other nations, in fact nearly all
the other nations, have successfully switched. However, I would say
"yes" and the reason is this: there is little benefit to
forcing certain segments of the population and industry to switch to
Metric.
Still, if other nations have successfully transitioned to metric, why
can't the United States? Afterall, India made the transition,
successfully, in a matter of two years, and in modern times no less
(1960-1962). Why can't the United States just bear the pain and get
it over with? Well, for one, the United States is not like other
countries. With respect to India, especially in 1960, little
infrastructure needed to be converted to the new system, and the fact that
so little of the population was educated meant that few people had to deal
with the conversion. A better comparison is between the United States and
Europe, and yet the comparison here is also flawed: history has etched out
two different molds for each peoples, and their needs and beliefs are
different.
The Difference Between Metric in the USA and Europe
Europe has a long history of using the Metric system. After its
introduction, many European countries quickly adopted the standard for
their own use. Spain even personally escorted French Metric emissaries,
during wartime, to ensure the spread of Metric in Spain. It was just
that important. The reason for this? Look at the state of
"units" in Europe: each nation had its own unique standard of
measurement units. How the hell do you convert between a Swedish
"aln" (59.37cm after 1863, 59.38cm before that) to a French
"ligne" (2.707cm) or "royal foot" (32.484cm)?
With the close proximity of such nations, it became increasingly important
to standardize units of measure for trade and other international reasons.
The EU again enacted that kind of policy with the establishment of a single
currency, designed to strengthen European currencies uniformly.
Such problems were not the case with the United States; use of units and
currency were and are generally uniform. The interaction between
territories is at a state level, not a country level, and for
this reason, the Imperial system was exposed to and reinforced by a lot of
people belonging to a single nation. Isolationalism also played a key
part. The US really only borders two countries: Canada and Mexico. By
far, the major influence in the region is the US, not the bordering
nations, and it shows: Canada only started enforcing the Metric system in
1970. Mexico was far earlier, but because of Spain's influence.
Standards were just that: standards. A consistent method to communicate.
We achieved the same thing Europe did with Metric, only with a different
system. Because we didn't border nations for which it was pressing to
standardize with (like the case of Europe), we didn't. So the use of
Imperial units stuck. It isn't for arrogance reasons that we
haven't switched; there just hasn't been a compelling need to,
and we have an established base of people who use it day-to-day.
An Established Base
Concrete Reason: The metric system is a consistent decimal measurement
system.
Just because something is better, doesn't mean it should be
immediately adopted--or ever adopted. I could only imagine the number of
social upheavals that would occur if we were to adopt that kind of social
strategy.
Think about the conversion to Metric
time--poked fun at by an episode of the Simpsons. Does anybody use it?
Hello? Please don't raise your hands all at once. The system
has been around since Ancient Egyptian times and the number "12"
was related to lunar cycles, or maybe finger bones, or zodiacs, or who the
hell knows? Look at our months: twelve months with inconsistent number of
days. Why the hell would anybody use that?!
What about the degrees on a circle: 360 degrees. Why would anybody choose
that number? Nice integer factors? Oh, because a year is 365 days? Or
the Persian calendar was 360 days long? Maybe those Greeks had something
to do with it. Either way, nice reason. 360. Why not use something more
useful, like powers of two? 256 points on a circle. Or 512. Computer
games use that, it saves them from performing floating-point calculations.
At least then it can be divided down easily. But no, we're stuck with
360 degrees.
Look at the Intel x86 processor: originally designed in 1978, its CISC
architecture is positively archaic, akin to the Imperial unit system
because the instructions aren't of standardized size. A substantial
percentage of the logic in x86 processors has been dedicated soley to
overcome the inherit design flaws of the architecture--a huge waste of
resources. However, this dog of a processor has stuck around simply
because it is ubiquitous on the desktop--even luring Apple from a better
designed processor architecture. The installed base is so large, and
its needs for backwards compatibility so great, that the x86 will probably
never disappear.
Like the x86 processor line, and time units, Imperial units have an
"installed base" as well, and quite a large one. However, what
is interesting to note, and is often misperceived by Imperial
nay-sayers, is that while the US is considered an Imperial-units nation,
the prevalence of Imperial units is mostly restricted to daily use by
citizens, consumer goods (food products all have metric units on them), and
older industrial standards. Metric is, however, prevalent in many
industries, standards, and even some daily use (like some food products are
solely metric). So, for example, road signs, because of their direct
relation to the general populace, will be measured in mile units almost
exclusively (except close to some international borders); however,
scientific, medical, automotive, and military applications nearly always
use metric.
Dammit, that's no reason! The Metric system is so much
better! Can't you see? Why the hell would you keep using that
archaic, backwards, multi-number-based unit system?!
Because the features of Metric just aren't compelling enough,
and by compelling, I mean it doesn't provide enough benefit to warrant
change. Look at Internet Explorer vs. Firefox. People don't all
switch to Firefox because for most intents and purposes Internet Explorer
does enough. Switching and learning something new just isn't worth
the time to people. Yes, Metric is great for scientific use, and it is
definitely used there--everywhere--but for normal citizen use? Not really,
or at least not with a margin great enough to want to change. People
are used to using Imperial units, and that carries more value than
conforming to a system that is better, but not much better, for their
use.
Colloquial use of Imperial Units
Colloquial, i.e. informal, day-to-day use, of
Imperial Units is what most people associate with the
"Imperialness" of units (not foreign policy). Thermometers,
road-signs, food packaging, gas prices, penis lengths--they're all in
Imperial units for reasons that it is just easier not to force people to
switch. This is the main reason people think America is not-metric:
people just don't use the units. People don't switch because it
is just easier to stick with what is taught, and more importantly, there is
very little need to adopt anything else.
Take for example, a thermometer. The scale on a Fahrenheit thermometer
seems pretty arbitrary, and in fact it is: 100 degrees was the body
temperature of Fahrenheit (should have really been 98.6) when he created
the scale, and 0 degrees was the coldest temperature he could force water
to with known methods. The goal was to produce a scale that was
"wide" enough to be of use (you don't want a single degree
to represent too wide of a range). It stuck around until the Celcius scale
was invented which took advantage of water's abilities to maintain the
same temperature for large amounts of heat input at phase changes.
"Oh why the hell would you want a temperature system that reads from
some arbitrary 32F for water freezing to 212F boiling?" We
don't, but in the end, how many times do you need a thermometer
to measure when your pot of water is boiling? It's boiling; you can
see that. For freezing, 32 is just a number, much like zero. You remember
zero, we remember 32. Big. Fucking. Deal. In the end, Fahrenheit is just
a relative temperature scale people are used to, nothing more. It even has
some nice "colloquial" uses: 100 degrees F is a hot day; 90-100
is summer temperatures; 80s are mild, etc. It's the same kind of
thing with Celcius: 25 is room temperature, 40 is hot, 50 is very hot
(outside). For day-to-day use, they're all just numbers to remember,
with either scale. So very rarely do people ever take advantage of
Celcius's scientific basis, except maybe for scientific uses, and in
terms of that, people use it anyway.
Distances are another area with relatively arbitrary measurements. Twelve
inches to a foot?! Five-thousand-two-hundred-eighty feet to a
mile??! What the hell kind of system is this? Yeah it sucks, but then
again, how many times are you going to convert miles into feet? Or inches
into feet? Very, very rarely.
"Hey ma, we're only 45 miles, 2,300 feet and 8.3 inches away
from Atlanta!"
"Is that as the crow flies or did you use a line-integral over the
curve of the road?"
Get real. There is little public outcry against miles because their
conversion factors are not in common use. Conversion factors appear most
with small height-measurements. For example, foot-ranges (5', 6'
etc.) are convenient for height or length classifications: 6'+ is
decently tall for a man, women generally want to be at least
5'3", 7 feet is a basketball-player worthy, 6.4" is the average length of an
erect penis, etc. It's like the temperature ranges for Fahrenheit:
we're used to the ranges, so we just let them be. It's not like
we're reciting such values to Europeans. For that we have Google.
Use of Imperial Units in Industry
Not all Imperial units are tied to common use; a lot of are tied to
industry. A very good example is a barrel of oil: an Imperial-derived
unit (42 gallons) adopted internationally because its exclusive use in the
oil industry. Why is it not metrified? Because its use is so limited and
so well standardized.
There are other such vestigal, internationally
accepted, Imperial-derived standards as well. For instance, when creating
microwave microstrip (stripline) filters, I was floored to discover that
the standard measurement unit was not micro- or millimeters, but
mils--1000ths of an inch; it's a standard used across the PCB
industry, a remnant of the US's dominance in the telecommunications
industry. Still, I had figured nearly all scientific/engineering
measurement systems, certainly one that dealt with something as advanced as
microstrip filters, would use metric, because... well... hmm, why would you
not use Metric units in microstrip filters? "To give me more
work in converting my damned hand-calculations into these God-forsaken
mils," was my first thought. But I only had to do that once,
at the end, and such it is in industry as well.
Or not... because everything is calculated using that standard unit, but
not any of the oddball units related to it (feet, miles, etc.). The
standard is metrified--that is it uses the same metric for the unit
in a consistent manner--it just doesn't use SI units for the
job. Is it worth forcing an industry to change all its standards just to
comply with metric? No, we don't do that here: it's not worth
the time or energy, and the scope is so limited that very little benefit
would be realized, aside from knowing that microwave engineering standards
are now metric--and that's a very small prize indeed.
Most industries, however, use metric units simply because they're tied
to international trading. You don't hear about international-unit
problems because most industries already use metric units anyway.
Scientific, military, medical, etc. applications are almost exclusively
metric. A notable exception was Lockheed-Martin's (LM) use of
imperial units for their work on the Mars orbiter; however, both LM and
NASA were fools in that incident: LM for not abiding by NASA's
requirement for Metric, and NASA for not checking the units, which LM
expected NASA to do (which is why we append unit designations to the end of
numbers).
Non-metrification, however, appears when
industries interact with the public. Units like "horsepower" or
"foot-pounds" (sometimes) appear in automotive citations, and
inches are used for clothing or body measurement ("Thirty-six,
twenty-fo, thirty-six? Maybe if she's 5'3""). Other
units such as those in construction ("2x4") are tied to building
codes and other standards. Because construction materials are so
localized, there is very little need to switch to international standards.
The same thing goes for transportation systems, like railways, which use
standards that predate the creation and adoption of Metric.
Who can forget the use of gallons for gasoline? With a nation so
car-centric as the US, of course it'll be in colloquial units. No
doubt, the use of liters in some distant future will be used to confuse the
public into paying more for gas.
So... why don't you switch?
"That's nice and all, but still, why don't you get with
the program and switch to Metric? Damned stubborn Americans."
Well, why doesn't the rest of the world adopt dollars? It is,
after all, the world reserve currency. Exchange rates are far worse than
unit-conversions because they change over time! Or how about the world
adopt English as the one and only language? It's already the
dominant language in trade, science, business, entertainment, b0g, and
especially diplomacy (sorry French). About 1.9B people can speak it in
some form or another. Let's just get it overwith and adopt a single
unified language. Yeah, but get real.
It's not arrogance that makes the US not switch, it's
pragmatism. The industries that would benefit from metric have
already switched; those that won't benefit, have not. If you consider
people an "industry," they haven't either. No compelling
need, no compelling want. I honestly think that more Europeans care about
the United States's metrication than do citizens here. Then again,
Europe is more socialist than the US. Conform or be conformed. No
thanks.
For science, all units should be in SI, and in general they are. For
roadsigns and thermometers, I could not care less. If I want to give my
height in centimeters to someone in Europe, I'll break out Google.
Hell, I might even memorize some Metric ranges for estimating values, much
like I already do with Imperial units. I've seen the same thing from
Europeans as well. They're pragmatic about the differences, not
dogmatic.
So pragmatic we shall remain until the time is right, and the populace
willing, to switch over to metric, or at least tell the world: "we are
Metric." Until then, I'm sure people will continue yakking about
the issue as if it really made an oh-so-significant difference in their, or
our, lives.
posted by Bionic-Badger on Saturday 23rd September 2006, 19:02:35
Cubic meters are used as a unit for natural gas, but not so
much for oil. Sure, other units of volumes come up, but for oil, the
de facto standard is barrels. I had a hard time finding even a
passing reference to oil in metric volume, except maybe in conversion
charts, but not so much in actual use. If you find it, let me know.
Weight was sometimes used though, but more for total reserve capacity.
very nice article there, i better understand why americans don't
switch to metric in their daily use : because they are lazy fucks.
now don't get me wrong, i really do find your article interesting and
informative, but i find the reason why you don't give up imperial
units a little too easy.
and not to sound moronic but i think a lot of people in the world
understand why it is important to standardize things altogether, especially
between neighbor countries.
it is important to open up to other people from different countries,
culture, etc and find i way to get along together.
and that's something most americans really lack. no offense.
be honest, you don't give a fuck about what's going on in other
countries.
also you said somewhere in your article that switching to metric was easier
for india because of all the uneducated people.
might be but there is no proof. however i see a correlation with the usa
:
* "switching to metric was easier for india because of all the
uneducated people"
* "switching to metric was harder for u.s.a because of all the
uneducated people"
those uneducated nombrilistics narrow-minded people who never stepped
outside of their county borders.
but of course i know those don't represent the majority and that the
metric system is well used in certain fields.
this is why, even if i strongly disagree when you say there is no
compelling reason to change, i will not judge you.
it's not because i don't understand you that i don't have to
accept your explanations.
as you agree the metric system is a better system, i will agree that, for
some people, there is little interest in changing.
and i invite you to do aswell and don't start the bitching because i
called you lazy fucks and uneducated people.
now, as you stated in your article, this isn't really a reply to my
journal entry.
i was discussing why the metric system is a better system while you were
discussing the reasons wether to switch to metric or not.
our article
Recall that the original question was not about metric > something
else, the question was: "what concrete reason do you have to
make the USA change to metric?" Instead of answering this
question you made up something entirely different:
"Someone challenged me to give a single concrete reason why the
metric system is better then other systems such as the imperial
system."
Wrong. That wasn't the question. Your journal entry was
entirely pointless in that respect, basically a hand-job. To address
the question, I patiently explained why many people are
confused about why the US still uses the imperial system, to show how
"concrete reasons" (I guess "Metric is easier to
use") may not hold up in the real world. The reply to
this (the above) was, unfortunately, and also amusingly, a cliché
"America doesn't care about the rest of the
world"/"America is stupid because they're not like
us" reply. What is this, some kind of dependence issue? Still,
I'll give you a heads-up on that too, though I'm surprised
it's not already obvious (next comment).
If you want to know why people here don't know, or care, too
much about the "outside world" (and this goes for
Metric too), it comes down to two things: we're a big
nation, and we're geographically isolated from influential
nations. As the third largest nation in the world, we have more
than twice the land area of Europe in the continental USA alone;
population-wise we have nearly 300 million people--2/3rds of the
number of people in Europe. Not only that, the influence of
other nations is weak, both because of culture, and because this
nation is bordered by just two countries. So unsurprisingly, the
biggest influence here is ourselves, and there are a lot of us.
Change doesn't occur too quickly.
Compare this to an individual nation in Europe. Take Germany for
instance: 82 million people in an area the size of Montana,
bordered by eight other nations. Look at Belgium: 10M
people in a country the size of Maryland (only 3M more people),
and bordered by four nations. Conformity is a big part of
belonging to the EU; so if Belgium decided it was going to use a
"Belgium Customary Units" system, it would suffer a lot
of pain from having to work with other nations in its vicinity,
let alone the entire EU. This issue came up with Great
Britain's very recent changeover to Metric. The imperial
measurement system was so ingrained in British society
("I'll have a pint of beer please") that it was
only the need to easily interact with mainland Europe that
made it change.
That need is far weaker here. Here, the influences of bordering
nations is small, and from nations across the ocean, even
smaller--especially for insignificant issues such as road sign
units. We have never *needed* Metric the way Europe has. Metric
is a mere *convenience*, and far less convenient than sticking
with what we have. You say we should standardize to your
standards just because everyone else did? Sorry, but America
doesn't. We're not conformists, and American
... We're not conformists, and American society has far
more influence on itself than does international society.
It's not a self-importance issue; it's an issue
doing what is right for America. So cut the dogma and get
real.
In the end, I would actually change the "metric rulez
and some people don't need it" to: "Metric is
a good standards system, but not good enough to force
social change for America."
Why should the United States force a switch to metric?
This journal is not so much in response to
u83r1337*N!Xh4x0r's finely written 
Roll ahead to 1988 and yet another congressional
act, the "Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988" took aim
at industry to have it adopt the metric system for industrial standards.
Great. Now the Feds were responsible for helping industry towards
conversion to metric, and as a first step, government agencies would switch
to metric, with exception to the highway system. Other standards, like
those in the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1992, require metric to at
least appear on packaging such as food, with no penalty if Imperial units
are removed.
Think about the conversion to Metric
time--poked fun at by an episode of the Simpsons. Does anybody use it?
Hello? Please don't raise your hands all at once. The system
has been around since Ancient Egyptian times and the number "12"
was related to lunar cycles, or maybe finger bones, or zodiacs, or who the
hell knows? Look at our months: twelve months with inconsistent number of
days. Why the hell would anybody use that?!
Colloquial, i.e. informal, day-to-day use, of
Imperial Units is what most people associate with the
"Imperialness" of units (not foreign policy). Thermometers,
road-signs, food packaging, gas prices, penis lengths--they're all in
Imperial units for reasons that it is just easier not to force people to
switch. This is the main reason people think America is not-metric:
people just don't use the units. People don't switch because it
is just easier to stick with what is taught, and more importantly, there is
very little need to adopt anything else.
There are other such vestigal, internationally
accepted, Imperial-derived standards as well. For instance, when creating
microwave microstrip (stripline) filters, I was floored to discover that
the standard measurement unit was not micro- or millimeters, but
mils--1000ths of an inch; it's a standard used across the PCB
industry, a remnant of the US's dominance in the telecommunications
industry. Still, I had figured nearly all scientific/engineering
measurement systems, certainly one that dealt with something as advanced as
microstrip filters, would use metric, because... well... hmm, why would you
not use Metric units in microstrip filters? "To give me more
work in converting my damned hand-calculations into these God-forsaken
mils," was my first thought. But I only had to do that once,
at the end, and such it is in industry as well.
Non-metrification, however, appears when
industries interact with the public. Units like "horsepower" or
"foot-pounds" (sometimes) appear in automotive citations, and
inches are used for clothing or body measurement ("Thirty-six,
twenty-fo, thirty-six? Maybe if she's 5'3""). Other
units such as those in construction ("2x4") are tied to building
codes and other standards. Because construction materials are so
localized, there is very little need to switch to international standards.
The same thing goes for transportation systems, like railways, which use
standards that predate the creation and adoption of Metric.
